The 17-year-old 800m star on her breakthrough year, how she is keeping herself grounded and what she plans to make of her first Olympic experience in Paris
For Phoebe Gill, life has changed almost as quickly as the amount of time it takes her to cover two laps of an athletics track. Since chopping almost four seconds from her personal best, breaking a European Under-18 800m record that had stood for 45 years and clocking an Olympic qualifying time of 1:57.86 in Belfast in May, the 17-year-old’s world really has sped up in many ways.
Performances such as the run that won her Commonwealth Youth Games gold last year had already marked her out as one to watch, but that day in Northern Ireland was on a different level entirely. It didn’t take long for the attention levels to start ramping up.
Cut to late July and she is sitting down to speak with a group of British athletics writers as the senior UK champion and wearing the Team GB kit she has been issued with after that title-winning run in Manchester booked her ticket to the Paris Games.
Gill still admits there’s an element of disbelief about the situation in which she now finds herself. This is her latest stop on a round of media interviews, while the ink has barely dried on a kit contract signed with Puma and her sporting prowess has also resulted in being able to meet one of her heroes, the two-time Olympic champion Dame Kelly Holmes.
Given that she is the youngest British track athlete to compete at an Olympics for 40 years, it would have been understandable if the St Albans athlete’s head had started spinning.
As she contemplates what lies ahead of her in Paris, however, she is nothing but cool, calm and very collected, displaying a maturity well beyond her years. Life outside of the athletics bubble has been very good at keeping her grounded, too.
She is in the first year of sixth form, with A-Levels in biology, chemistry and maths to worry about, while a week of work experience immediately after becoming the UK champion certainly brought a healthy reality check with it.
“Life has definitely changed this year but school has been really good in grounding me between the hectic things going on,” she says. “[For work experience] on the Monday after the British Champs I was back at my old primary school helping the reception class. Teaching isn’t something I want to get into but I really wanted to get back to my old primary school memories because I had a lot of fun there. Being with the little kids after such a stressful but fun weekend was a really nice way to come back down to earth basically. I was there for a week.”
She adds: “It’s easy to get carried away. I wouldn’t say my life has been too different but coming up to Paris now I think things will definitely change for the better. I’m getting used to all this media attention, the big races and speaking to legends of the sport. It’s been different but in a good way.”
Phoebe Gill wins the UK title (Getty)
With exams having been sat in April, and the school year now complete, the way has been clearer for Gill to concentrate on the sporting year of her life so far. Given that it’s really not so long ago that she herself would have been a primary school child, the thought of her now being a role model to others is a notion to which she is having to adjust. Indeed, the effects of her performances on her peers is outlined by a fine piece from Luton AC athlete Nathan Davis, also 17, in the new issue of AW.
And yet Gill is already thinking about how she can use her Olympic experience to help others.
“I want to talk about what it’s like being one of the youngest athletes on the team and maybe share how I was able to cope with the highs and lows of it,” she says. “To think I’m a role model for these young athletes is a really blessed feeling because I looked up to many role models in the sport like Keely Hodgkinson and Dame Kelly Homes for so long.
“To think I’m someone for younger athletes to look up to is a very nice and warm feeling for me. I think I could have a lot of words of wisdom to say coming out of these Games and hopefully there’s a few more down the line. I want to share all my experiences on social media so people know what it’s like to be going at this young age. I can’t wait to share.”
Phoebe Gill [R] (Keith McClure)
Three years ago, Gill was a bleary-eyed 14-year-old who stayed up until the early hours to watch the TV as Hodgkinson won Olympic 800m silver in Tokyo. Now, the two are team-mates. But while the British record-holder has set the world alight with her 1:54.61 at the London Diamond League and has the pressure of outside expectation upon her, her younger colleague is not about to start making any bold claims about her own targets.
There is still so much to process from the past few months, after all.
“I’m grateful going to the Games at this age because I know there is less pressure on me now and hopefully there will be a couple of more Games after I grow up,” says Gill. “But ever since I ran 1:57 I’ve felt older in a way and started to compare myself to more mature athletes. I do think it wasn’t the best thing to do because you draw higher expectations just because you’ve run fast.
“I sometimes need to remind myself and ground myself that I am still a teenager and do have a long career left. It’s weird seeing people compare myself to [Olympic diving champion] Tom Daley and other young Olympians. I hope that I have successful journeys like them. I remember watching them when I was younger and thinking they were such inspiring people. Hopefully I can be like that and a role model on my journey in athletics.”
It’s all a far cry from the days when Gill used to concentrate on swimming, only taking up running after: “My PE teacher Matt Pring saw me running around a field [around Year 4] and entered me into one of the cross country meets where I actually won.” Her relationship with St Albans coach Deborah Steer – “she’s really helped me find a love for the 800m and 1500m” – has been key to this rapid development, too.
Keeping that love of the event will be central to how Gill approaches her Olympic debut, too, with the opening 800m heats arriving on August 2.
“I definitely want to get everything I can out of it,” she says of her hopes. “The village, the atmosphere, being around all these legends of the sport. It’s easy to say I’m coming in with no expectations but I think every athlete always puts some goals in their head. For me it’s just to progress through as many rounds as possible and to have fun and run with freedom the entire time. I know that’s when I start to excel, when I’m not too stressed out by the environment around me. I can’t wait to run with this amazing crowd of people. Hopefully it will produce some fast times, but let’s see what happens.”
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